


a row of captured ghosts

by astrolesbian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, essentially just hohenheim musing on his life and his choices and his sons, kind of a vent fic but uhh we're rolling with it, the ed/ling is background but also not really?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 03:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolesbian/pseuds/astrolesbian
Summary: He has not seen Edward smile in such a long time, not since he was a child and wound his hand around the end of Hohenheim’s ponytail, laughing and pulling a little too hard. Hohenheim remembers that it did not hurt. He could only focus on his son’s laughter. His hands had started to shake, and Trisha had made a soft worried noise and taken Edward away, cooing to him and grinning back at Hohenheim.He had ached for Edward to be back in his arms, but he had not known how to ask.





	a row of captured ghosts

The night air should be clear and cold, the way it has been the past few nights, but instead it is tense and stuffy. Hohenheim sits on a log and watches his son, and his son avoids his gaze. He tries to be content with being able to look at him again, after so long. He has missed him so much. To see him now, see him so close to being a man, tugs at his chest in ways he didn’t expect. His little boy, now seventeen, with hair all the way down his back, and a sharp jaw and cheekbones like his mother’s. His eyes are clouded with old pain and anger, his flesh arm scarred. There’s a scar on his neck, too, that hurts to look at; it’s so close to his throat. Hohenheim can sense Trisha in the lines of Edward’s face, and he sees himself in his boy’s bitter silence.

He is not angry at Edward for being upset with him. He never has been. From the beginning, Hohenheim knew he deserved it, every bit of anger Edward threw in his direction, every scrap of fury. He left in the early morning, hoping to get out before his children would have to see him do it. He lost track of the time. (He has lived so long that time passes quickly when he does not pay attention to it.) It seemed to be only months when he came home to find a fifteen-year-old with a bouquet of flowers approaching his wife’s grave; when he found his house in ashes and his children shouldering the weight of mistakes they should not have had to make. He should have been there to stop them, and he wasn’t.

And these are all, every single one of them, excuses. What it boils down to in the end is this: he left Edward, he left Alphonse, he left Trisha. He left the only thing that had ever made him truly happy. He was a fool, and as Ed so aptly puts it, an asshole.

So he cannot be angry with Edward. You receive what you put into a relationship, and Hohenheim has allowed his bond with his sons to crumble and fester. He still sits and watches him, though, because Edward is still his little boy, and Hohenheim still loves him with every fiber of his being, with all of the million souls that make up his heart. 

He wonders how Edward would react to know that all of these souls, all of Hohenheim’s friends, love him and his brother. That there are a dozen voices even now, chirping things like  _ oh, he looks like his mother, _ and  _ a State Alchemist at his age! I’m so proud, _ and  _ so handsome  _ and _ so strong. _

He thinks, though he knows little of how his son’s mind works, that Edward would be uncomfortable with the affection. 

The two chimeras, Darius and Heinkel, have finished eating dinner. They shrug and stretch, and Edward turns to them and speaks for the first time in fifteen minutes. “You guys leaving?”

“Nah, not yet,” the dark-haired one, Darius, says. “Greed’s still on watch.”

Edward nods. His eyes twitch towards the trees, where the homunculus vanished a little while ago. 

“He’ll be back soon enough,” the lighter-haired man adds, turning to face the other. “You want me to take watch after him?”

“Eh, we can do it together,” Darius says. “Keep each other company while the kid sleeps. God knows he needs it.”

“Quit calling me kid,” Edward mumbles, but there’s little bite to it. He might be smiling. Hohenheim watches and his heart aches. He has not seen Edward smile in such a long time, not since he was a child and wound his hand around the end of Hohenheim’s ponytail, laughing and pulling a little too hard. Hohenheim remembers that it did not hurt. He could only focus on his son’s laughter. His hands had started to shake, and Trisha had made a soft worried noise and taken Edward away, cooing to him and grinning back at Hohenheim. 

He had ached for Edward to be back in his arms, but he had not known how to ask.

“Sure,” the darker-haired one says. “Turn eighteen and I’ll think about it —”

Ed stands, then. It’s so sudden that it throws the entire conversation off balance, leaves Hohenheim blinking, brow furrowed. What’s more confusing even than the abrupt cutting-off of the sentence is the wild, sun-bright grin on his son’s face, a look of pure joy. It shocks him to the center of his being. It tears something desperate into his soul. Voices chime up inside him,  _ our boy our boy our beautiful child our son, our son. _ He almost moves forward, and opens his mouth, but Ed isn’t looking at him.

“Ling!” he calls, delighted, and then he’s running in the direction of the woods, where Greed — the homunculus — is emerging, running too, grinning in the same wild way Edward is.

“Long time no see,” he calls, and it’s a different voice than Greed’s, a different way of pronouncing the words and a different lightness, a warmer tone. 

Ed reaches him in seconds, grinning like a fool; he throws his arms around his neck and kisses him, tugging him down to his level. Greed — not-Greed? — is taller than Ed by a few inches, holding him like a lifeline.

Hohenheim tilts his head and watches the way their hands curl around each other’s faces, tender and searching. Then he remembers himself, and looks away.

His son, seventeen and in love. Or in something.

He hates having missed so much.

“How long have they —”

Darius shrugs. “A while. From what I can gather they were dancing around each other something awful, and then Greed fucked it up. But sometimes Ling comes back, and they’re on for a little while. Ed said something about them being trapped someplace together and fighting their way out of it, but I think he might be bullshitting. Ling always says Ed rescued him on the side of the road when he first got to the country, though, which kinda sounds like bullshit too.”

“Eh,” Heinkel grunts. “I can turn into a lion. Our  _ lives _ are bullshit.”

Hohenheim chuckles, and glances back at the boys, who have pulled away from each other and are talking, quick and easy and natural. Their hands are still wound together.

“Don’t say shit about it,” Heinkel adds. “I like you, Hohenheim, but Ed’s got precious few things that make him happy.”

“I wouldn’t,” Hohenheim assures them. “Truly. I — I want him to be —” He struggles with it. Voices well up in his mind again.  _ Happy. Whole. In love. Safe. Our son our son our son — _

The two men watch him.

Hohenheim laughs, sadly. “It doesn’t matter what I want, does it? I’m not part of his life anymore.” His eyes flick to them again, his son and this strange boy, Ed’s age but taller. Ling is holding Ed’s wrists in the loose circle of his fingers, Ed cupping his face in his palms, their foreheads pressed together. Ed is talking about something and Ling is laughing, his eyes gentle and fond and kind. They are so young, he thinks, as young as he was once, forever ago, as young as Trisha was once, before he knew her. They are so young and clinging to each other in the dark. “Sometimes I think that’s a good thing.”

“You love him, don’t you? He’s your kid,” Darius says, like it’s that simple.

“More than my own life,” Hohenheim says. “But if he doesn’t love me, there’s not much I can do to force him. And he’s entitled to his anger.” He sighs. “I  _ did _ leave, after all. I was a fool.” It’s oddly cathartic to say it aloud, to admit to it. “Al has forgiven me, but I can’t ask for more from Ed. It’s — it would have had to be difficult.”

“He’s a kid and he’s acting like a dick,” Heinkel says, as if that is comforting. “He’ll get over it.”

“I’m not a child and I acted much worse,” Hohenheim says. “Even if I can admit to doing so, it doesn’t make it right.” He glances back at them, and looks at the warm, tender smile on his little boy’s face. His little boy that is not little, his child that has had to grow up. “I want him to be happy. He deserves that, after everything.”

He thinks of Alphonse, rattling around in a suit of armor, his voice trembling when he lowered his head and said “Just don’t — just don’t call me  _ she, _ please, Dad.” How Ed’s eyes had flickered with something like gratitude, even love, when Hohenheim said “I ran into your brother in Liore.” How they have had to cling to each other because he was not there to hold them, how this is unfair. How they have made themselves happy, despite that. His two sons, his boys. 

He picks up a stick and pokes at the fire, watching as the sparks fly up into the empty air. He wonders how long he can go on stewing, blaming himself for everything. He wishes he knew how to move on and step forward and try to be their father again, to admit to his mistakes and learn from them. 

He pokes at the fire again and watches as the little bits of fire climb into the sky and then go out. He looks over at Edward again, to find the young prince looking back at him, eyes narrowed and mouth stern. Ed’s hand finds the boy’s cheek again, turning his eyes back to his. There’s something playfully scolding but relieved in Ed’s face, in that moment. Hohenheim finds himself smiling, warmed from the inside out at this stranger’s show of stubborn protectiveness, his willingness to glare across a field at Hohenheim if he had dared to make Ed unhappy. 

He’s glad that Edward has someone like that. The smile tugs at his mouth for the rest of the night, as Ed and Ling vanish into the town together, as Darius and Heinkel roll their eyes easily at each other and go on watch, as Hohenheim sits at the fire alone and closes his eyes, listening to the chorus of voices inside him.

When Edward comes back to the fire, later in the night, it’s with Ling by his side, and a stack of wrapped plates of food from town, one of which he grudgingly hands to Hohenheim and two that he sets aside for Darius and Heinkel. He and Ling sit and eat theirs, talking quietly to each other, the words becoming nothing more than a faint buzz that Hohenheim can discern no actual words from. 

Soon, though, Ling sighs and pushes the rest of his food onto Edward’s plate. “He’s waking up,” he says, and taps on his forehead. 

Ed’s mouth tightens, but he only reaches up to touch the side of Ling’s face, brief and gentle. “Okay,” he says. “See you soon.”

Ling flashes him one last sunny grin before bending at the waist, teeth clenched, and sitting back up with a purple sheen to his eyes and a sharper edge to his smile. 

“Had fun, shorty?” he says.

Ed shrugs and goes back to his food. “Hi, Greed.”

Greed stands and stretches, glancing back towards town. “The chimeras are on watch, yeah?”

Ed nods.

“Right,” he says, drawing the word out thoughtfully, “then I’m gonna go have a look around. Leave you and dear old Dad to chat.”

“Asshole,” Ed says, “you’re just trying to skip out on your turn keeping watch.”

“I’m the boss,” Greed says, “I can do whatever I want.”

He makes sure to flip Ed off before he walks away. Ed returns the gesture, then goes back to eating.

There are a few minutes of silence before Hohenheim clears his throat.

“Don’t,” Ed says, without looking up. “If you’re gonna try and lecture me for my life choices or whatever, just—”

“I wasn’t,” Hohenheim says. “I just wanted to say, um. He seems nice.” He looks at his hands. He can’t bear to look at Edward right now. He thinks he might cry. “I know I wasn’t — I haven’t been — well. You know. You’ve yelled at me for it, and you’re right. But I’m glad that you and Al have found people that care for you. And I’m glad you have someone like him.”

Ed doesn’t answer for a long moment, and when he does, his voice is suspiciously watery. “You know I don’t need your fucking — approval, or whatever, right?”

“I know,” Hohenheim says. “But you have it. However much or little that means.”

There’s another long silence, and when Hohenheim glances up, careful, he sees a faint smile on Ed’s face. He thinks, again, of that moment when Ed was a baby, his hand tugging on Hohenheim’s hair, his laugh ringing in the air around them. He thinks of that look of open joy on his face when Ling had emerged from the woods.

Edward doesn’t say  _ thank you, _ or anything of the kind. But it’s all right. His smile, Hohenheim thinks, is enough.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> my emotions regarding hohenheim are really complicated. i feel really bad for him but i also think he's kind of a selfish dick. so i tried to write this to make sense of my feelings and to also give him credit where credit is due . . . i 100% believe he loves his boys more than anything in the universe, i just don't think he knows how to show it or how to be there for them. 
> 
> a few quick notes:  
> • this takes place right before the whole pride battle where al is possessed  
> • al is trans in this (and in all of my fics, tbh)  
> • this fic is kind of a spiritual successor to **talks like a gentleman,** meaning that they take place in the same universe. i might want to write some in between stuff because i still want to do something where greed gets to comment on ed and ling's romantic life  
>  • title is from _welcome home, son_ by radical face


End file.
